


Grazed

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11698089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Written for the @txf-fic-write-in 15 minute picture prompt, with the aim of using a photo to write about setting as a character.Post En Ami. Angsty.





	Grazed

Mulder slows the car, pulls onto the gravel layby and gets out. He slams the door shut and Scully exhales. She tucks her chin to her chest and waitsa beat. If she follows him too soon, it will exacerbate the whole thing again. If she leaves it too long, it would remain between them, ready to be pulled out and picked over at the next appropriate moment. How did they become so bad at talking about the things that upset them? When did it start to get so obvious? That need to build walls, to compartmentalise, to push through? How did they continue to ignore the prickles and thorns that jabbed? The barbs that stung, the silences that sometimes cut deeper than the words?  
She wonders where words go when they are thrown with such vehemence. She supposes some stick and wound, graze the surface. Others miss and others still are swallowed and ruminated ready to be regurgitated.  
She opens the door slowly, swings her legs round from the foot well. The dry heat on her lower legs burns. She pushes herself out and shuts the door. The sun is a glaring rage across the hard blue sky. It pushes down on her and she feels sweat prickle at her top lip, her shirt sticks to her back in an instant, her chest sinks in. She watches the pale dust puff under her feet, her black suede pumps paling to dirty grey.  
Mulder stands next to a towering cactus, taking his tie off, staring at the lunar landscape. The arms of the cactus scratch at the sky, tearing at the gods above it, perhaps in anger? Or maybe in penance? She won’t beg him for forgiveness. She just won’t. But she can easily see herself throwing up her arms to open herself to him, be vulnerable for him, just to ease his anger, for him to launch all his unsaid at her. Perhaps that is all the salve they need here in this harsh environment.  
She has told him time and again that she would do the same thing. She would still seek the cure if it meant getting in that car with Spender, if it meant being used, if it meant humiliation. She would do it again and again. And so would he.  
How alike they have become. She has become him – leaping in, wanting only the truth, the cure, justice. He has become her – stepping back, questioning, weighing and measuring.  
“Mulder?” A whip of wind takes her words.  
“I hate when you say my name like that, Scully.”  
“Like what, Mulder? Like I care about you?”  
“Like you’re my…”  
She touches the skin on his arm, his sleeve rolled up. It is hot, dry. “Your what?”  
He turns his sad eyes to her. He isn’t angry any more. “It doesn’t matter.” He scuffs the dry ground and turns to the cactus. “They move, you know. Looking for water. They walk.”  
“I know,” she says. “They live like this, in the dry, the heat, being questioned by the sun, being interrogated by the wind. They live like this. All the time.”  
“I’m sorry, Scully. I was out of line.”  
He words only scratch the surface. But she knows they’ll live.


End file.
